THE FASTEST ISPs OF 2021

The work-from-home era has truly arrived. Fast broadband internet that keeps you productive as well as entertained is paramount. No matter where you live in the country, we’ve pinpointed the ISP that can meet your need for speed.

- ERIC GRIFFITH

Every year at this time, we pull data collected from the PCMag Speed Test and crunch the numbers for download and upload throughput to determine which broadband internet service providers (ISPs) offer the best speed, period—both national and regional. Let’s see what surprises await in 2021.

WINNERS: THE FASTEST ISPs IN THE UNITED STATES

MAJOR ISPs

Fios by Verizon

Over the last decade, Verizon’s fiber-to-the-home service has won numerous PCMag Readers’ Choice awards from those who use it. And the results from our PCMag Speed Test demonstrate why Fios has also been one of our top fastest ISPs nine times in the last decade. This year, the only difference is that major cable providers are edging closer to the kind of speed only Fios once seemed capable of on such a massive scale.

ALL ISPs

Empire Access

This little company in New York’s central-southern tier, with some reach into northern Pennsylvania, has been around for 125 years. Now Empire Access also claims the title of the fastest ISP in the US. We’ve seen single-municipality networks crank out the speed in the past, but this year they all fell to this small company that provides fiber-optic service to several small towns. Empire Access speeds are so epic, even Google can’t keep up.

HOW WE RATE ISP SPEEDS

You can skip this part if you already have a keen understanding of how we calculate an index to rate speed. But if you don’t, give this a read; the charts below will help illustrate our method.